e and more men reinforce
them with new thought and will and imagination. But in Rome we
see from the first the astral mold so strong that the strongest
party feelings, the differences of a conqueror and a conquered
race, are shaped by it into compromise after compromise. And
then, too, an instinct among those peasant-bandits for empire:
an instinct that few European peoples have possessed; that it
took the English, for example, a much longer time to learn than
it took the Romans. For let us note that even in those early
days it was not such a bad thing to come under Roman sway; if
you took it quietly, and were misled by no patriotic notions.
That is, as a rule. Unmagnanimous always to men, Rome was not
without justice, and even at times something quite like
magnanimity, to cities and nations. She was no Athens, to
exploit her subject peoples ruthlessly with never a troubling
thought as to their rights. She had learned compromise and horse
sense in her politics it home: if her citizens owed her a duty,
--she assumed a responsibility towards them. It took her time to
learn that; but she learned it. She went conquering on the same
principle. Her plebeians had won their rights; in other towns,
mostly, the plebeians had not.

Roman dominion meant usually a betterment of the conditions of
the plebs in the towns annexed, and their entering in varying
degrees upon the rights the plebs had won at Rome. She went
forward taking things as they came, and making what arrangements
seemed most feasible in each case. She made no plans in advance;
but muddled trough like an Englishman. She had no Greek or
French turn for thinking things out beforehand; her empire grew,
in the main, like the British, upon a subconscious impulse to
expand. She conquered Italy because she was strong; much
stronger inwardly in spirit than outwardly in arms; and because
(I do but repeat what Mr. Stobart says: the whole picture really
is his) what should she do with her summer holidays, unless go on
a campaign?--and because while she had still citizens without
land to hoe cabbages in, she must look about and provide them
with that prime necessity. All of which amounts to saying that
she began with a habit of empire-winning,--which must have been
created in the past. On her toughness the spirited Gaul broke
as a wave, and fell away. On her narrow unmagnanimity the
chivalrous mountain Samnite bore down, and like foam vanished.
She had none o